Al-Shafi'i

Abu Abdillah Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i (768-20 January 820 AD) was an Arab Muslim theologian, writer, and scholar who founded the Shafi'i school of sharia law. A student of the Hanafi jurist Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani, al-Shafi'i was a mentor to the founder of the Hanbali school, Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

Biography
Abu Abdillah Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i was born in Gaza, Abbasid Caliphate in 768 AD, and he came from the Quraysh clan of the Banu Muttalib tribe; his family was originally from Yemen. Despite his great-grandfather's kinship to Muhammad, al-Shafi'i grew up in poverty. He and his mother moved to Mecca when he was two years old, and he received legal training in Medina at the age of thirteen, becoming known as a brilliant jurist by 795 AD. In 798 AD, he was appointed Governor of Najran, and he became known as a just administrator. In 803, he was accused by the Caliph of taking part in a revolt against his rule, but his eloquent self-defense convinced the Caliph to dismiss the charge. al-Shafi'i befriended the renowned scholar Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani and travelled to Baghdad to study with him, developing his own school and participating in legal arguments with Hanafi jurists and defending the Maliki school of thought. In 804, al-Shafi'i left Baghdad for Mecca after he became somewhat critical of al-Shaybani's views during the debates, and he began to lecture at the Sacred Mosque, influencing Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the founder of the Hanbali school of jurisprudence. He returned to Baghdad in 810 AD, and he left Baghdad for Egypt in 814 AD; he died in 820 AD after being assaulted by a Maliki scholar, Fityan. He died at the age of 54 in al-Fustat, Egypt.